Entangled
by Hunsdon
Summary: "It's just all so cute. And unexpected. However much she teases him about his metrosexuality and being in touch with his feminine side, this is something else. It's just not . . . usual." set between Under Fire (6 x 11) and Deep Cover (6 x 12). Two Chapters.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Entangled

Rating: K+

Summary: "It's just all so cute. And unexpected. However much she teases him about his metrosexuality and being in touch with his feminine side, this is something else. It's just not . . . usual." set between Under Fire (6 x 11) and Deep Cover (6 x 12). Two Chapters.

* * *

><p>It's appallingly cute. <em>Appallingly<em>. She keeps peeking into the gift bag, and there it is, nestled into a spray of artfully arranged pastel tissue paper.

"Beckett, quit messing with it." He scolds. "You're squashing the paper."

"I'm not _messing_ with it, Castle!" But the rustle gives her away as she yanks her hand back. She was totally messing with it.

But it's so cute. The gift itself, but the whole thing. The bag and the profusion of ribbon deftly knotted into a more than passable satin rose, complete with green curls streaming down from it like leaves. It's all so cute that it's fascinating. And he knows it. He keeps catching her messing with it.

"I can make you a set if you're jealous." He slips an arm around her and drops his voice to a rumble.

It's wrong. It's so incredibly _wrong_ for that to send a shiver through her, given the context. Given exactly what's in the bag and who it's for, it's just wrong. She _turns_ on him. The train jerks to a stop and it pulls him out of the moment. It pulls them both out as one murmuring crowd spills out and another filters in.

"Ok," he says quickly. He backs off a little, draping his arm along the top of the seat. Avoiding contact like he's just pictured it. "Ok. Yeah. No. I . . . forget I said that." But he darts another look at her out of the corner of his eye. Another look at the bag. "Yeah. No. I could, but . . . no."

"But _no_," she says emphatically, even though the corners of her mouth are apt to turn traitor any second.

It's just all so cute. And unexpected. However much she teases him about his metrosexuality and being in touch with his feminine side, this is something else. It's just not . . . usual.

"A ribbon rose, though?" He's cheerful. Pleased with himself, and undaunted by the looks she's been giving him. By her relative silence about the whole thing. "I can make you a dozen ribbon roses. A sustainable alternative to the houseplants you keep killing."

"I don't 'keep killing' them." She pokes him with the air quotes. "I just . . . don't get home all that often lately."

"You don't get to _your_ place all that often." He leans in as he corrects her, smacking a kiss on her cheek and offering his ear for punishment.

She tweaks it, more because he expects it than anything else. It's not something they're fighting about. It's not something they've ever fought about, actually, though she would have expected it.

She's all but moved into the loft. He'd like the "all but" to go away. He says it outright from time to time—reminds her that they were set to "officially" live together in DC, and points out the lunacy of what her place costs. That they're getting married, and it's kind of silly. But he grins when she pushes back and admits that he loves having somewhere they can run away to as much as she does. And that's how it is. She can't remember the last time she was there without him. They run away together.

They fight about plenty. Big things and small since the summer. Since the ring and DC and everything. They fight far more now than their first year together, and it's good. It means they're meeting things head on, not avoiding.

They fight, but it's almost never anything she saw coming. They still surprise each other after all this time together. After all the time before that not together.

"Beckett." He slaps her hand away. That's definitely surprising. To both of them, judging by the way he jerks his hand back. High and out of reach. "Quit fondling it. You're ruining my presentation."

"Presentation."

She snorts and rolls her eyes, but this is their stop, and he's tugging her up from the seat. He's plowing through the crowd with purposeful strides and glancing back anxiously. He gives her a smile of approval when she holds the bag high and twists at the shoulders to keep it from being crushed.

It's all just too cute.

* * *

><p>"There's not going to be a scene, is there?"<p>

They're riding the elevator up to Ryan and Jenny's place. It's old and creaky and slow. She has plenty of time to give him a sharp look, but he gives it right back. He's caught her again. Peeking inside the bag and running her finger over the pointed arch of one ear, then the other.

"Scene?" The word makes it out before she can stop it. An affronted huff as she snaps the bag shut, but that just feeds the fire. It just sharpens the annoying gleam in his eye.

"Sarah Grace is just a baby, Beckett." The elevator dings and bumps to a stop. He rests one hand at the small of her back as he gestures her into the hall with the other. "You're older and you know better, so you have to set an example. I don't want any fussing when she gets a present and you don't."

She'd like to kill him. She really would. She swings the bag at his middle, sputtering, but he laughs and catches it easily. He takes it from her and peers inside. He scowls and shifts things a little, tapping his palm against the side of the bag to plump it out again.

"Besides . . ." He gives her a stern look as he raises his fist to knock on the door. "Maybe there'll be a present later. If you're a good girl."

* * *

><p>Jenny's adamant about trying it on right away.<p>

"She's asleep," Castle protests, but it's more because he should than he wants to. Kate can see he's pleased. She can see he's eager to see the gift in all its adorable glory.

"She's _always_ asleep." Ryan laughs as he holds his daughter up so Jenny can unzip her sleeper. "We're lucky."

"Guys, it's ok. You can send us pictures when she has a _chance_ to try it on," Kate adds her objection though she's just as eager as Castle. And, anyway, the two of them already have the baby stripped down to just a bulky cloth diaper and its cover.

"Oh, there will be pictures." Jenny hugs the tiny bottoms to her chest, tapping the fluffy cotton tail so it bobs. "Rick, this is just . . I can't believe you _made_ this."

"Yeah, Castle. Can't _believe_ it." Ryan's needling him a little. Looking to Beckett for backup, and she knows he can't wait to tell Esposito.

But Jenny tugs the soft, fawn-colored knit up Sarah's chubby thighs. She settles the hat on her head and smooths up the ears at the exact second the wide, blue eyes flick open, and Kevin is as gobsmacked as the rest of them. It's so cute it's criminal.

Jenny's soft _oooh_ draws a toothless, drooling smile. Kevin straightens his arms and fumbles to turn his daughter to face him. Jenny laughs and takes her, holding her up high and turning her from side to side so everyone gets a look.

Her tiny feet kick and wave. Her belly shakes over the snug rib of the waistband as she laughs and gurgles, delighted that she has the full attention of four people.

"Family picture," Castle gestures, and the Ryans meet cheek to cheek in the center of the couch. Sarah's "ears" tickle their noses and he snaps the camera at the perfect moment. He catches the two of them laughing. He catches Sarah shrieking with glee.

"Now with Aunt Kate and Uncle Rick." Jenny pops up. "They made this for you, baby bunny," she says blowing a raspberry against the bare skin of her back

Kate's about to protest that it was Castle—_all_ Castle—but Jenny thrusts Sarah into her arms just then. Into her suddenly, incredibly awkward arms. Kate freezes. She's stiff and staring. Horrified enough that Castle can't entirely mask a guffaw as he slides on to the arm of her chair, shielding her from the judgmental eyes of the new parents. She stares at him, a mute plea—a mute threat or something in between—for him to take the damned baby, but he shakes his head almost imperceptibly.

"Look at _you_," he says softly.

He flicks his fingers at the baby's bare, wriggling toes, but he only has eyes for Kate as she takes a breath and everything comes right. Everything feels _different_ in a moment so present that it settles on the three of them like sunlight. Kate bounces her knee and Sarah's head comes happily to rest in the crook of her elbow. Castle leans in, drawn to them both.

"Guys!" Kevin snaps his fingers overhead. The three of them look up and the artificial shutter clicks.

"Oh, _perfect_," Jenny coos. She snatches the phone to hold it up, and it is. The picture is perfect.

The three of them. They're appallingly cute.


	2. Chapter 2

Title: Entangled, Ch. 2

Rating: K+

WC: ~4600 this chapter, ~6000 total

Summary: "'Where'd you learn?' She tries to picture it. Needles moving swiftly in his broad hands. Yarn eaten up like belt-fed ammunition. She laughs to herself at the cartoon image. She doesn't know the first thing about it. She really has no idea." Second chapter, set between Under fire (6 x 11) and Deep Cover (6 x 12)

* * *

><p>"Take me out." She slips her fingers shyly into his and tugs him away from the entrance to the subway station.<p>

"Kate Beckett." He presses his hand to his heart and hers along with it, like he's shocked. "It's a _school_ night."

It is. It's late on a Sunday, and neither of them is eager for the weekend to end. She tugs again, and he comes easily when she pulls him down the street.

"Present," she says with a saucy look over her shoulder. "I was a good girl."

He catches up with her. He winds an arm tight around her and hugs her body into his. Smiling still, but serious. Sincere. "You were great."

"Soooooo." She shakes him off a little and rolls her eyes at him. At herself, because it means something to her that he felt it, too. That fierce moment of connection with the baby. With each other—all of them. It's still fizzing through her. "Present!"

"Present," he agrees. He looks around to get his bearings. This hasn't been his part of the city for a while. "Ice cream?"

"Ice cream, obviously," she says, though she hadn't thought of it. She catches sight of a street sign and lights up with excitement. There's an old favorite of hers nearby. Someplace they've never been together, and she hopes it's still there. "A _real _present, too."

"A real present." He pats his pockets like he's nervous. "I'll have to think of something."

She turns to face him, striding backward, surefooted and holding out her hands to lead him onward.

"Think quick, Castle."

* * *

><p>It's still there. The bell jangles brightly as Kate pushes through the door and he follows. It's a bona fide ice cream parlor, right out of the 50s, with marble-topped tables and spindly wrought-iron cafe chairs that squeal against the floor as people come and go.<p>

He looks wistfully at the soda fountain, but every seat along the counter is already taken. She knows he'd love to wait. That he loves the image of the two of them side by side, swiveling on their tall stools and bumping shoulders. Bending over one tall glass with two straws like teenagers from another time and place. She knows because she loves it, too.

But there's a table just open, and it's late already. Plus, she's eager to sit him down. To crawl back into the moment and make him tell. To claim her present.

"Castle." She jerks on his sleeve and he comes along, happy enough.

"This is amazing." He slips into the chair across from her, immediately sitting up tall to peer nosily at the other tables around him. "I can't believe you've been holding out on me."

"Forgot about it until now." She lifts a hand to catch the waiter's attention and murmurs two orders. One of each of her favorites. She'll make him share.

Castle is distracted by scents and sounds and everything. He's smiling and handing over his menu before he even realizes the kid is folding up his pad and walking away already.

"Hey!" He tries for a wounded look, but it's not particularly convincing.

"You'll like it. Them. Both things."

"Both." He tips his head toward a passing tray. It's crowded with old school seashell dishes heaped high with ice cream. Toppings and nuts and electric red juice from maraschino cherries spill over their scalloped rims. It's enormous, all of it."Trying to fatten me up?"

"We're _sharing, _Castle." She arches an eyebrow. "You know how to share, don't you? I don't want a scene."

"A _scene." _He lowers his voice_. "_Keep looking at me like that and I make no promises, Beckett."

He slides his hands across the table to snag her fingers. She lets him, though he's pushing it a little, and they both know it. She's not big on PDAs, and the cop in her likes to have her hands free, but it's an opportunity. She circles her wrists and flips his hold so her fingers fan out on top of both his upturned palms. He smiles down at the contrast—pleased by something so simple. She works her nerve up.

"Where'd you learn?" She tries to picture it. Needles moving swiftly in his broad hands. Yarn eaten up like belt-fed ammunition. She laughs to herself at the cartoon image. She doesn't know the first thing about it. She really has no idea.

She raises her eyes to look at him. His head is cocked to the side. He's wondering at first, but she's just in time to see him get it. To see the tips of his ears go red and the diversion fall off his tongue.

"To make roses?" He lets one hand go, then the other. He looks around and grabs a few napkins and a half-dozen straws from the tabletop dispenser. He fishes for the pocketknife that always surprises her and drags the sharp tip swiftly down the plastic barrel of each, splitting them lengthwise.

"Mother was a slave driver." His hands are busy as the words spill out. It's a performance, and she hasn't seen that kind of thing from him in a while. It doesn't hurt, exactly, but she wonders _Why now? Why this? _ He goes on. "She always had costumes that needed 'something'," he pauses for air quotes. He smiles in her direction, but doesn't quite meet her eyes. "So I got good with ribbon. Scraps of fabric. Whatever. It was like the salt mines."

She waits him out. Watches as he folds and twists and fans the tissue and uses the plastic to give it structure. She lets him babble a little.

"More of a carnation." He twirls the stem, frowning down at it before he presents the finished product with a flourish. "Limited by my materials."

"Castle," says quietly, and he has the good grace to blush a little deeper. She knows she has him.

"Not a good enough present?" He gives her a hang-dog smile as he offers the flower again. He'll play fair. They both know that, but he strings it out a little longer, even so. "Ferrari?"

"Got one." Her smile sharpens. She gives him a shrug. "Half of one, or close enough."

Her gaze drops again to their hands. Her fingertip skates along base of his left ring finger. She isn't sure what's gotten into her tonight. Why she's so sentimental. But she looks up and he's drinking her in. Nervous still, but mostly in awe. He licks his lips and his throat bobs. She knows how he feels. Her own heart races ten times a day when it hits her: They're getting _married. _

"I want to know." She tugs one hand free to hook her hair behind her ear, then quickly reclaims his fingers. Her thumb swipes over the same spot. A pointed reminder for them both. "I want to know you."

He smiles at that in earnest. Nothing held back at all, and she tries not to kick herself for the time they've both wasted not just _saying _things. She wants to know him. He wants the same, even though his eyes cloud a little the next second and he curls his palms up as if he's making sure of her hands. Sure of her.

"It was after Kyra left," he says. "Right after she left. That's when I learned."

* * *

><p>The waiter comes just then. An awkward interruption that silences them both. She's glad and not glad.<p>

_Ah. _

It's about all she had to say anyway, so the timing saves her from that. But she still wants to know, and it's weird for her. This is a point where they don't really meet at all. Neither of them talks much about old flames, but the why of it is completely different for him than her.

There just isn't much to say on her side. High school boyfriends who hardly mattered. No one at all worth mentioning for a long time after that, even if she remembered much about them, and she doesn't. Will and Tom and Josh, but he knows those stories, and she's just . . . they're done. Things about each might smart a little now and then. She might kick herself over this or that, but they're done. Royce. Maybe that's closest, even though it was never anything. Not really. And she's just not inclined to dwell.

It's harder for him, though. The past weighs heavier, and it's something she's not happy it took Meredith for her to realize. There's too much for him to say, and it starts with Kyra. With the things he swore he'd never want again because they hurt too much to lose. That's the sense she's made of it so far—all this last year or so, and she just . . . doesn't have that frame of reference. She doesn't have a Kyra and _Ah _is all she can think to say and the moment seems to be gone.

"This is . . . " His eyelids flicker shut and he mutters around a mouthful that's mostly hot fudge. "_God_, this is incredible. Switch!"

He reaches out for the dish closer to her. She thinks about heading him off. Holding it for ransom and making him talk that way, but she's a little blue about it all of a sudden. About needing to make him. She pushes the bowl closer instead and extends her own spoon to drag the other toward her.

He brings his down first. A clash of metal and he twirls it in the air. "_En garde._"

"Castle!" It's too bright. Too forced and cheerful. "What did we say about sharing?"

"I'm sharing," he shoots back. It's sharp. Defensive enough that they stare at each other for half a second until he registers that they mean different things. He turns the dish. "Oh. This, too. I'm sharing this, too, but the hot fudge is listing hard to starboard. Let me . . ."

He waves her away, strategically scooping until he's satisfied. He leans across the table to feed her the carefully crafted bite. It's another thing she wouldn't usually do. The spoon at her lips and his free hand beneath her chin. It's too cute, even though it does taste even better than she remembers. Her eyes slip shut, even though it can't _possibly_ be better just because he's feeding her from his spoon.

"There was a book." He dives back in swiftly enough to startle her. Suddenly, before he stuffs another bite into his own mouth, like he needs to build momentum. "I was . . . it broke my heart when she left. I was confused and hurt and really good for nothing. I mean _really_."

He looks up like he's half-expecting her to take a shot. He's left himself wide open, after all. But even if she were inclined, she couldn't. He's left himself wide open, and she sees it. That raw part of him that never saw the end coming all those years ago.

She wants to say something. She thinks she should, but she doesn't _get _it. Will left. He wanted something more than he wanted her, and that hurt. More than she let herself realize at the time, but it didn't shake her like this. Whether it's nature or circumstance or whatever, there's nothing but the obvious in her life that's left a mark like this.

She doesn't know what she can say, so she feeds him. She takes the same care coaxing the perfect bite on to her spoon and leans across to him. It's awkward. He's surprised. Laughing because it's _so_ not her, and half of it winds up at the corner of his mouth, trailing fast down his chin.

"Sorry! Castle . . . sorry." She swipes it clean with her fingers, but he catches her wrist. His tongue darts out to steal it back and he presses a brief kiss to her knuckles. A thank you, and she's glad she made the gesture, however awkward it is. However silly she feels, she's glad when he goes on.

"I couldn't write or anything." He picks up his own spoon again. He takes a couple of bites and his gaze wanders over the crowd. From table to table and back to her. Back to them. "It wasn't all about her." He thinks about it a moment longer. "Or . . . I don't know . . . I was struggling before she left and maybe that's why . . ."

He makes an impatient gesture. It's not what he wants to talk about, and it isn't that he's hiding. There's just another story he wants to tell. The one she asked for.

"There was a book," she prompts.

He nods. Another thank you. "I could read. I wasn't sleeping, and that was about the only thing I could stand." He looks on warily as she takes another spoonful. Half from his, half from hers. He does the same. "I got obsessed. Second-hand bookstores. I'd just . . ." He sweeps his arm wide, demonstrating. "A whole shelf—a whole section. I'd drag these huge paper bags to my apartment and hole up. And then I'd sell the books off again as soon as I finished. New week, new shelf."

She gives him a perplexed look. "Knitting books?"

"No." He laughs. He shakes his head. "I'd never . . . there's no way I could have learned from a book. Mysteries. All paperback mysteries."

She glares and takes a heaping spoonful from his dish. A warning. He's toying with her a little now. Mulling over the story and drawing it out because he knows she wants it, but the tide turns soon enough.

"They were crap, mostly, and it made me feel worse." Misery flickers briefly across his face. She believes him. She remembers it from when they first met. From the year before last when he pulled away. "I couldn't even write crap."

"And?" She raps his knuckles with her spoon. "Then?"

"And then I found her." He lets it drop. Swerves around the water glass barrier she's set up and steals an errant blob of whipped cream perched on the the edge of her dish.

"A woman." She snorts dismissively. She smiles around it, but she's surprised. A little disappointed, maybe. _A woman? _

"Not like that." He says it quietly. He smiles, too, but there's a sharpness to it. She opens her mouth to apologize—for what, she's not really sure—but he's moving on. "Lauralee Anderson."

He leaves it there between them. She turns it over a few times in her mind, then shakes her head.

"She wrote seven mystery novels." The spoon droops a little in his hand, and she can tell he was hoping. He's not surprised the name doesn't mean anything to her, but he was hoping."Kind of . . . Agatha Christie born 40 years later. More of a hard-knock life. American."

"So," she bites at the corner of her lip, pulling a smile back under. "Not like Agatha Christie at all."

"Ok. Fine. Not so much like Agatha Christie . . ." He sticks his tongue out at her. It's stained dark with cherry juice. She wants to kiss him. "Except that she wrote mysteries."

"They were good?" She's guessing. Interested in spite of herself to know how the story gets from point A to point B.

"They were ok." He shrugs. His are better. She knows that's what he's thinking, and she shakes her head at the ins and outs of him. The way he's wounded and heartsick one minute, cocky as hell the next. She shakes her head at the mystery he is. "Nothing spectacular or new if you looked at the whole thing but . . . " The words fall away and he's lost in thought.

"But?" She kicks him under the table, impatient now.

"Ow!" He jerks his leg back and ends up cracking his knee on the underside of the table. "Women!" He leans down to rub his shin. "She wrote really good women, and I wanted . . . I wanted to understand."

"You wanted to understand women." She thinks about it. "So you took up knitting?"

"I wanted to understand how to _write _women." He's mumbling. Scraping at the bottom of the dish, but it's empty. They're both empty, and he's at a loss for something to hide behind. His ears are red again. "Knitting was a side effect."

"Castle!" She tugs her own dish out of reach.

"I tracked her down." He sets his spoon aside, a little sheepishly, like he's made up his mind to just get through it. "I was . . persistent."

"Persistent." She leans back and folds her arms across her chest. She's going for stern, but he smiles up at her through the hair falling over his forehead, and it's like day one again. Him and her and a too-narrow table in a too-small interrogation room. It's all the good and bad of that. "Is that what you call it?"

He lets it burn between them a minute, but he goes on unprompted. He's caught up in it now, too. She wants to know. He wants to tell. Mostly.

"She wasn't writing anymore." He gives the words space. Fear and reverence. It's a terrible prospect for him. Miserable. "It was the last thing she wanted to talk about. And I . . ."

"You kept showing up." She says it more to herself than to him, but he nods.

"She lived alone. She wanted to be _left _alone." Some particular memory strikes him. He grimaces. "It wasn't the kindest thing I've ever done."

"She liked you anyway." It's not a guess. She knows the story. She knows how this part goes.

"Eventually." It's quiet. Nothing smug in it now. He's being honest with himself. Honest with her. "A little."

"And she taught you to knit?" She reaches her toes out under the table. She winds her feet between his. She tugs him back into the moment, here with her. "Like a Mr. Miyagi thing?"

"Wow . . . it . . . yeah. Kind of." His face lights up. He laughs, startled and pleased. "Kind of. I brought her flowers and candy. Books, finally. She closed the door in my face half a dozen times, and then one day she yanked me inside and sat me down and told me to put my hands up." He spreads his elbows on the table and fans out his fingers, demonstrating. "She made me hold yarn for, like, hours while she wound it into balls. I asked her a hundred questions and she hardly said a word until she kicked me out and told me to come back in a few days."

"So you did."

"Of course I did." He lets his hands collapse on to the table. "It was too weird _not _to go back."

"And you still didn't know anything about women."

He purses his lips, pointedly ignoring her. "She didn't even let me in the second time. She just shoved this big brown-paper parcel through the door at me and told me to deliver it to the address on the front."

"What was it?" She leans forward, but he's silent. Idly scanning the room and tapping his fingers on the table. He's making her pay for her crack. "Castle!"

She drums her feet on the floor. A miniature tantrum just as the waiter comes to clear the table. Her cheeks blaze red. She steps hard on Castle's toe, but he just smirks and reaches for the check before she can.

"Baby hats," he says as he hands it back with a handful of bills. "All kinds of colors. The address was a little community hospital a few blocks from her place. She did a delivery every month. Hats. Blankets. Booties. All kinds of things for new parents who didn't have much to take home with them."

"Did she let you in the next time?" She gives him a look. "I _know _there was a next time, Castle."

"You would." He waves off the waiter as he tries to bring them change.

Kate looks around, suddenly feeling guilty. They've been lingering, and the place is still wide awake.

"We should go, I guess?" She doesn't want to.

He twists in his seat. There's a knot of chattering people in the entryway. Two or three groups waiting.

"We should go." He's disappointed, too, but he rises anyway. He holds out his hand. "Walk a little?"

"Yeah." She pushes up from her chair. She doesn't let herself look at her watch. It's late on a school night, but she doesn't look. "Walk a little."

* * *

><p>Traffic is as light as it ever gets, and everything about the streets is curiously subdued. It's cold and a little rainy. There's a Sunday night feeling hanging over everything. Over him and her by his side, but there's a sweetness to it. The way they're tucked against each other, comfortably strolling.<p>

"She wrote everything by hand," he says. It's a branch off the main story, but there's a note of awe in his voice. She thinks of his neglected army of expensive pens. The ones he hardly uses except when he's really stuck. He's chained to his gadgets when he's writing. "She copied and recopied every manuscript."

"She couldn't type?" Kate does the math in her head. It seems unusual for a woman back then.

"She could." He chuckles and the wind carries it away. "She just didn't _want _to. 'I _paid _a girl to do that'." The voice he does sounds more than a little like Martha, but his grin fades. "By the time I knew her, though, her hands were in bad shape. Arthritis."

"She wasn't writing anymore." The words make her sadder than they ought. She didn't know the woman, but this is what he's done to her since before they met. What his stories have always done to her. "She taught you, though."

"I offered." He glances down at her. "There are few things more heartbreaking than an orphaned pair of baby booties. I have _some _shame . . . or I did, anyway. So I offered to help when she'd have to put stuff down after a few rows. There was a lot of yelling, but I learned. Basic stuff." He ducks his head. "I can't do anything really fancy, and it's been a _long _time. But something about Sarah Grace . . . I wanted to try my hand again."

"Knitting." Kate laughs. Shakes her head. They're talking at cross purposes. "She taught you to knit. But . . . women . . ." She thinks about it. Calls back the not-so-careful words that make their way to the tip of her tongue, because she's run roughshod over him sometimes before. Blundered in and hurt him in ways she hadn't realized she could. "Nikki . . ." She grits her teeth. "Clara Strike. They're different."

"Yeah?" He's trying for casual, but his arm tightens around her. He stumbles and she bumps him with her hip. She knocks her head against his shoulder.

"Yeah," she says. "How . . . " She doesn't know quite what she's asking. "What was her secret?"

"I don't know, really." He thinks about it, a quiet smile on his face and a new sense of ease in his shoulders. "I asked her a million questions, but mostly she made me talk."

"Like _that's_ a struggle."

That slips out before she can stop it, and she's sorry. She doesn't mean to tease. Not now. She looks up at him, anxious, but he's just lost in thought.

"It was then," he says slowly, and she remembers that it is now, too. That, really, it has been as long as she's known him, but the magic holds. He goes on again. "Relatively speaking, anyway. But she got me talking about my mother . . . all the women around me. All the time when I was a kid . . . "

She thinks about it, too. They way he is really surrounded. Always a little out of place with the guys. At home in his strange family circle. _Their _strange family circle.

"They were never bad," she says. Tentative at first, then stronger. She thinks about his other books. Other characters. She's a little defensive, though it's strange, given the circumstances. "Before. In your other books. They're always people with you. Men and women. They're _people_, and not everyone . . . even good writers can't seem to manage that sometimes."

She has more to say, but he stops her. He stops them both under a streetlight and kisses her. A strange, matter-of-fact thing that's more like a handshake than anything else.

"Thanks." He kisses her again. Softer this time. "Thank you for that." He starts them walking again. "I hope . . . I think they were ok. Before. But they're not _just _people. Not like . . ." He tips his face up, a little frustrated, so he comes at it from another angle. "I'd take her out once in a while. Bookstores mostly."

"Yarn shops?" They're passing one by. It's just a coincidence, but she can't help pulling them closer.

"Once in a while." He makes a face at the window. The jagged letters and lurid colors. Spiky-looking garments with laddered runs everywhere. It's definitely not your grandmother's yarn shop. He pulls them along. "It didn't matter where, though. She was this stout little thing with her cats eye glasses and this _scary _grey bun. And she was smart and _funny _and knew a little about everything, and to the world, she was just . . ."

"Invisible?"

"Yeah." His jaw is tight. The memory makes him angry, but he sneaks a sideways look at her. There's something else, too. "And seeing that . . . the way she had to push just to get people to see her. She played with that in her books. She turned it around and used it. Little old ladies and plain Janes. Gorgeous blondes. She never repeated herself, and they all just sauntered in where people didn't expect them."

"Handy for a detective. Being invisible." Kate nods. She hadn't really thought of it that way—and it doesn't exactly make her happy—but it's true. No small part of why she's good at her job is listening. Letting herself be invisible. Or too visible, she thinks as she remembers popping a button in front of the Old Haunt. Half of it's taking advantage of the things people would never say in front of Esposito or Ryan. Things they don't think twice about saying in front of her.

"Handy," he agrees. "But . . . awful. And _there. _All the time. Even if you're a Broadway actress or a super hot, badass detective." He leans in close to her ear and it's more than a little strange. A seductive growl with an apology underneath. "It's what grabbed me about her books."

"She taught you," Kate says again, and she feels him smile as he rests his cheek against the top of her head.

They fall quiet, both content, and it's satisfying when she looks up and realizes where they are. That the story has brought them home.

"I could teach you." He's opening the door to the building for her. The thought stops him in the act.

"_No!_"

They say it at the same moment. She's adamant. He's a little horrified. It'd be a disaster.

He pulls the door open and ushers her in. "I could make you something, though."

"Not . . ." She spins toward him. One hand brushes the top of her head. The other flies to cover her backside. "Not . . . No."

"No. Not that." He's laughing as he looks her up and down. "I _could, _but . . . something else. I could make you something else."

She thinks about it. He could make her something.

"Present," she says as they step into the elevator. "I was a good girl."


End file.
